LAHORE, June 18: The Punjab Assembly speaker barred another PML-N member from attending the session for a fortnight as police disallowed nine suspended MPAs of the PPP and the PML-N from entering assembly premises on Saturday.
The police blocked the entrance with barricades and kept the vehicle carrying the MPAs stationed in the sun. They were not allowed even to dismount.
Rana Sanaullah Khan, Farzana Raja, Azma Bokhari, Samiullah Khan, Pervez Rafiq, Ashraf Sohna, Sheikh Ijaz, Rana Mashhud and Ishtiaq Mirza had reached the venue at 12:30 noon when the house had been adjourned half an hour ago to meet again on 3pm Monday.
Other opposition members made an abortive attempt to remove the barricades and chanted slogans against the government and speaker Afzal Sahi.
The protesters included Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan, Sagheera Islam and Faiza Malik of the PPP and Dr Waseem Akhtar of the MMA.
The protest lasted for half an hour as a brawl between the MPAs and the police was averted.
A policeman videotaped the whole activity.
Mr Sanaullah said the existing rulers had written a black chapter in the history of democracy by suspended membership of MPAs through a resolution in the house.
He said the speaker could bar an MPA only from sitting in the house and not any chamber on the assembly premises. The speaker cannot suspend membership of any MPA, he said.
He alleged that Mr Sahi, under duress, played the role of a member of the ruling party instead of a custodian of the house. “His step is unconstitutional as all opposition members will challenge his decision. We too have come here to challenge the same and will continue to do so until it is not withdrawn.”
Rana Aftab said the speaker had no authority to suspend membership of MPAs and if he did not review his decision their protest would intensify with the passage of time.
Mr Samiullah said the treasury and the opposition are two wheels of democracy but the government wants to run it on one wheel.
Dr Waseem held Gen Musharraf responsible for all this fuss saying the army ruler had kidnapped democracy at gunpoint.
Earlier when house proceedings started at 10:30am, opposition members Rana Aftab, Nazim Shah, Raja Riaz, Arshad Baggu, Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, Asghar Ali Qaiser and Mujahid Ali Shah, through their points of order, urged the speaker to take back his decision for creating an atmosphere of reconciliation in the house. They called for inviting the debarred MPAs to the speaker’s chamber and adjourning proceedings for an hour for a meeting to resolve the issue amicably.
Law minister Raja Basharat said the government also wanted to forget the past and set a new beginning. However, he set the condition that the members should first prove with their behaviour that they would mend ways before seeking any concession from the government or the chair.
In the meantime, PML-N’s Dr Asad Ashraf sought floor through a point of order and on refusal by the chair gave some provocative remarks and the situation led to a loud protest by the opposition.
The speaker debarred PML-N member from Faisalabad Nawaz Malik for a fortnight for raising slogans against the chair as the opposition walked out of the house.
Mr Sahi vowed that he was ready to order out even 100 MPAs for the sake of sanctity of the house and running it according to set rules and regulations. If the opposition, he said, had any objection to his ruling they could move a court of law. The lawmakers were allowed to protest only under rules of procedure, he added. He saluted the powers-that-be for not dissolving the assemblies, ignoring the mayhem created by these.
He earlier disallowed the opposition to introduce out of turn a resolution (against the treasury) in the house, saying proper procedure should be adopted for it.
Mr Sahi had on Thursday allowed the treasury to move a resolution out of turn banishing Rana Sana and Rana Mashhud from the house for two weeks.
